Category: Doubt

Those who are in doubt will always live in fear. Those that live in faith will know no fear!

Doubt is not the work of a curious or inquisitive mind. It is the product of a mind that refuses to trust. Deep beneath the layers of mistrust lie past experiences. It is in these experiences that trust could have been eroded, because none of us really is born with doubt, fear, mistrust embedded in us. It is years of living in an environment of mistrust that leads people not to have faith. There’s an old Malayalam (South-Indian language) saying that goes, “A cat that once falls in a tub of hot water will never trust water in the future!”. The cat was not born to hate water or with a phobia for water. But its experience of falling in the hot water tub made it wary and untrusting of water.

So are we. You and me. Our experience of dealing with someone defines our level of trust with them. When we go through Life’s myriad experiences, we develop attitudes to Life, based on them. A person who has lost a lot of money will not trust anyone with anything material. Someone who has had too many health challenges will never trust doctors and hospitals. Someone who has had a few bad relationships, will not readily trust the institution of marriage. And so on. But when we live each moment in doubt, in fear, without trust__of something or the other__we are living a shackled, imprisoned Life. We are created to be free. Live free. We were always liberated. But we are burdened by the weight of our doubts and fears. To break free, we must learn, yes, learn, to move on. To treat each experience as an individual event and not generalize. If one person cheated you of money, it doesn’t mean all of humanity are frauds. If one bad relationship caused you grief, it doesn’t mean you can’t have another. If your plane had a bad landing or you survived a crash, it doesn’t mean you should stop flying.

The venerable Khalil Gibran (1883~1931), the Lebanese American writer, demystifies doubt and faith thus: “Doubt is a pain too lonely to know that faith is its twin brother.” To move from doubt and fear and to embrace faith, simply trust Life. Let go. Make that bungee jump. If you haven’t come crashing down and died yet, it means you are flying. And what if you die? Don’t worry, don’t fear, because you will not even know it when you die!

Among the few things that will definitely kill you before you die is doubt. The moment doubt arises in the mind living becomes miserable. A kind of hell right here! To get rid of doubt, you need to practice detachment. And the simplest way to stay detached is to be aware, to remember that, anything that’s bound to be eventually taken away from you is not worth holding on to. When there’s detachment, doubt ceases to exist. And trust flowers leading you to inner peace.

Yesterday I had an interesting conversation with someone who has been making Life very difficult for me in recent months. He has made the situation worse by tying all of us up in knots so badly that nobody knows how to un-entangle the mess. At the end of another long call, he asked me to accept a fresh set of conditions. Basically this meant that he was reneging on an in-principle understanding we had and was bringing up new terms as deal points. I heard him out calmly and told him that I was willing to sign on the dotted line – no questions asked. This meant that he could, if he so wished, cause me more harm in the future. He asked me if I wanted to discuss the matter with my lawyer. I told him I didn’t see any point in doing that and instead agreed to his terms unconditionally. So, he asked me, ostensibly out of academic interest, why I was accepting his fresh terms without resistance. “Because I trust you,” I replied. Our call ended with him feeling contented that his expectations were exceeded and hopefully, unless he brings another twist to the tale, we would be making progress soon.

While logically I should not be trusting him, because he has not shown any intention to honor previous understandings between us, I decided to rise above doubt because I saw no point in doubting him anymore. I have lived with doubt in the past and have found it to be a very depressing emotion. It makes you anxious, wary, fearful and causes untold agony. I agree that trust can be a risky proposition when it comes to worldly matters, but since you make that choice consciously, you have considered its practical pitfalls. This is where detachment from outcome helps immensely. And despite your trust, despite your being prepared for the worst, should you be let down and you have to face a consequence that you were better off avoiding, I would still say it is a lot better to trust than not to! Simply because trust always delivers inner peace – often instantaneously. Surely also because we have to find newer and better ways to stay anchored in peace in this short lifespan that is available to us!

When you trust someone or something it means you have understood doubt – you have let go of that fake sense of security that doubt creates and are aware that, eventually, doubt cripples, drains and vitiates an existing situation. Dropping doubt means you have dropped what would have otherwise chewed you up from within. When doubt disappears, trust prevails. Trust is not a decision – it is an outcome that is the result of doubtlessness. And it is only through trust that you learn to live fully, to love and to experience inner peace.

Disclaimer

Disclaimer 1: The author, AVIS, does not claim that he is the be-all, know-all and end-all of all that he shares based on experiences and learnings. AVIS has nothing against or for any religion. If the reader has a learning to share, most welcome. If the reader has a bone to pick or presents a view, which may affect the sentiments of other followers/readers, then this Page’s administrators may have to regrettably delete such a comment and even block such a follower. Disclaimer 2: No Thought expressed here is original though the experience of the learning shared may be unique. AVIS has little interest in either infringing upon or claiming copyright of any referenced material published on this Page. The images/videos used on this Page/Post, that are not created by AVIS, are purely for illustrative purposes. They belong to their original owners/creators. The author does not intend profiting from them nor is there any covert claim to copyright any of them.